Where the Lilies Bloom
by Mala
Summary: Sometimes, two different people are more alike than they realize. RJ&Jessica. Note: Since I am neither black nor white, please forgive any clumsiness with the racial dynamic.


Title: "Where the Lilies Bloom"  
  
Author: Mala  
  
E-mail: malisita@yahoo.com  
  
Fandom: "One Life to Live"  
  
Rating/Classification: PG-13, RJ/Jessica.  
  
Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine!  
  
Summary: Sometimes, despite your differences, you're more alike than you realize.  
  
He hates her. He hates her big baby eyes and her pretty little mouth... her blond hair, how it always flops over like a 40's pin-up girl's. He hates her skin...like the pale petals of the white calla lilies they have in every goddamned vase at the Palace. Even at Capricorn, he's fallen prey to the lily white disease.  
  
Most of all, he hates how his granddaughter calls her "Mommy." He hates that, after all this time, here's another white woman trying to raise a black baby and make one parent nothing but a bad memory.  
  
She sees it in his eyes as he walks Jamie into her nursery.  
  
He sets the baby down in the crib, chucks her under the chin and babbles nonsense. He smiles for her. And his smile disappears the moment he walks back into the main room.  
  
"How...how *dare* you?" he asks, hearing his own voice shake with barely-checked anger. "How dare you let that little girl forget her mother?"  
  
Jessica's mouth opens in a perfect 'o' of surprise. She looks like a store-bought doll. The kind he and Hank used to drop-kick across the street when they were kids. They didn't have nappy-haired dolls back then like they do now. But it doesn't matter...it doesn't matter how many dark-skinned rag dolls he buys, they won't add up to Keri.  
  
"RJ...I...I didn't *tell* Jamie to call me 'Mommy'. I didn't!" she defends, crossing her arms over her chest. "I would never *do* that."  
  
"Wouldn't you?" He drags a hand through his hair and it, too, is shaking. His fingers snag in the kinks of his dreds and he clutches the back of his head to keep from tearing them out. "You've been playing house with Antonio for a long time, Jessica. You have what Keri should have had. What my daughter *died* for. You have...you have no idea what that's like. You live in your safe little blueblood world, Rich Girl, and you work for Mommy's newspaper... have you ever fought for anything in your life?"  
  
"Yes." Now...now it is her who shakes. "Yes, I have."  
  
She hates him. She hates his arrogant lips and the contempt in his dark gaze. The way his hair has always been longer, prouder, than hers. She hates his skin, the way it gleams like stones polished smooth by water. The way it's just as hard and unyielding and timeless.  
  
Most of all, she hates that his daughter grew up to have her own. A daughter that lived. A daughter that, no matter how many times she rocks her to sleep, will never be hers.  
  
"Mommy" is a hollow word.  
  
It belonged to someone else.  
  
It should have come from someone else.  
  
"How...how dare *you*?" she fires back, wiping the burn of tears from her cheeks. "You self-centered jerk. All of a sudden you're the only one in Llanview who's had loss? RJ Gannon, One Man Pain Train?" Her arms slide down to wrap around her waist, her empty womb. The memory of nine months...nine months that didn't lead to a nursery, but to a cemetery.  
  
Nothing in her life has truly been right since Megan died.  
  
In fact...she can pinpoint it as the moment everything went to Hell.  
  
The realization dawns. He remembers. Will Rappaport. Oh. *Shit*. And RJ curses, softly, reaching out. "I'm sorry..." he says, far too late.  
  
"You're *sorry*?" she repeats, the doll's porcelain face cracking. "I was barely eighteen when Megan was born. I hadn't even grown up myself and I had *dreams* for her. Dreams that never came true. Keri got to have a life. She got to love and to laugh. Jamie will, too. All I want ...all I want is a tiny part of it. Is...i-is that really so unforgivable?"  
  
He is not a hard man. Not really. He can't bear to see a woman cry. Not even her.  
  
He hates her.  
  
He knows her.  
  
So, he draws her close. So, he lets her beat at him with her tiny, clenched fists. Lets her pummel the unfairness into him until she slumps, spent, against his chest. Until her sobs slow, and turn into quiet, hitching, breaths muffled in the folds of his shirt.  
  
"Why...? Why, RJ? Why can't we share?" she wonders, voice hoarse and wet.  
  
"Jessica..." He touches her hair. Her pin-up girl hair. The curls catch on his fingertips.  
  
He hates her.  
  
He knows her.  
  
She tastes like grief.  
  
He's fallen prey to the lily white disease.  
  
Again.  
  
--end—  
  
April 1, 2004. 


End file.
